Fight Back

by Anna Smith

  Sharon nodded. ‘Yep. He’s such a cunning bastard, he might just be able to do that.’

  Vic sat back and stretched out his long legs, and Sharon couldn’t help but admire how fit he looked in his white linen shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular, suntanned forearms.

  ‘But he’s got to get the stuff to the point where he can actually distribute it first. He’ll have people lined up to buy and part with a shedload of money for it. And that’s where he can run into trouble.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ Sharon said. Her mind was working on how Knuckles used to get his drugs delivered to the warehouse and the cutting and processing that went on from there. But this was different.

  Vic leaned forward.

  ‘Meaning he could get ambushed.’ Vic gestured with his hands as though he was holding an assault rifle. ‘Bang, bang, bang. Bye-bye, Frankie.’ A smile spread across his face.

  Sharon also smiled because she could see the picture.

  ‘And I take it you mean ambushed by the Caseys?’

  ‘Who else? If you want to hit this Colombian fucker hard, then that’s how it’s done.’

  Sharon thought for a moment before she answered. ‘Of course, you don’t think the rest of the dealers he’s handpicked for the prize coke will also be planning the same ambush?’

  ‘Of course. But you just have to be ahead of the game.’

  ‘Oh aye. And Frankie’s going to be stupid enough to let us know where this is all going down. It’ll be watertight, Vic. Frankie won’t put a foot wrong in the planning of this, because he knows he can’t afford to.’

  ‘Yeah. You’re right. I’m sure the dealers won’t be told where and when until hours before the meet.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He smiled again and touched her hand.

  ‘And that, sweetheart, is where Vic comes in.’

  She shook her head at his mischievous grin.

  ‘And how’s that?’

  ‘Because I’m riding shotgun with the driver who’s bringing the shipment in. Driving from Spain right to Portsmouth, then on to wherever Frankie tells us. I’ll be with it all the way. And so will your guys.’

  He looked so pleased with himself that Sharon couldn’t help but smile. He really meant this. He was really going to put himself on the line for her. She was a little taken aback. The way he was talking and building the story up, she was half thinking she’d maybe get a call from him giving her some intel on where the shipment was going. But this was a big deal.

  ‘Jesus, Vic. You could end up dead for even thinking this. If Rodriguez ever had an inkling—’

  He interrupted her. ‘That cunt thinks the sun shines out of my arse, he does. He’s been so all over me like a cheap suit since Frankie left that I half expected he was a faggot – inviting me to dinner, going on to some club in Marbella and drinking till the small hours, telling me about his life back home in that Colombian shithole. I can’t get the measure of this fucker when it comes to exactly who he is. I only know that he’s an evil bastard, but a flawed one, because two of his operations so far have gone tits up. But last night, he invites me to dinner and it was then I was telling him about how I used to drive containers with cannabis over in the old days for a few of the lads. So he knows that I’m reliable and I know my shit. Then he told me about the plan and what Frankie would be doing, and he asked me to ride shotgun. He said there will be a hundred grand in my account the day I leave, two hundred grand in my account if I can get the shipment safely to Frankie. And he said after that I can do what I want. I can come on board with him, or I can fuck off and do my own thing.’

  Sharon raised her eyebrows. She couldn’t wait to tell Kerry this news.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t let him shag you?’

  He burst out laughing, then stood up, and eased her onto her feet.

  ‘Absolutely. He’s not even a good kisser. Too much tongue straight away. I hate that in a man.’ He chuckled, pulling her towards him, running his hands down her back and pushing her buttocks against his groin. ‘C’mere, you mad woman. I’ve been thinking about this every day.’

  He kissed her hungrily, pushing himself hard against her, and she felt a little weak at the knees as he caressed her thighs and pulled her dress up, then ran his hands across her pants, gently fondling her as she groaned with pleasure at his touch.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Kerry had been awake half the night, her head buzzing with figures and calculations. And also guilt. Sharon’s early-evening call had blown her mind. Eight tonnes of uncut cocaine worth forty-four million pounds was heading to the UK. Eight tonnes. Christ almighty! She didn’t even know what eight tonnes of cocaine looked like. But she knew that forty-four million pounds could help build her hotel, set the Caseys up with strings of property in Spain and the UK. It could make them a legitimate business, one that was proud to sit at the top table with any other enterprise raking in a profit. The killings, and the hits, and the swimming in the sewers with the rats that went with the territory of running a criminal empire, would end. The Caseys would be kingpins, respected for their financial worth, not feared, the way they’d been under Mickey Casey and Frankie – and to an extent her father in the old days. What had surprised Kerry was how swiftly she took to the prospect of getting her hands on that cocaine. She hadn’t baulked at the idea, nor had she flinched at the dangers that lay ahead. She was taking this cocaine. It would be hers to sell. Never mind the delicious humiliation of Rodriguez and Frankie Martin that stealing their massive haul from under their noses would bring. All Kerry could think about was the means to an end. This would be the biggest deal of her life, and she was going to win it.

  But that was only half the story of her night tossing and turning in her bed. The guilt came in waves as she lay in bed working out the logistics. She was actually thinking like a gangland kingpin. Was that really who she was, carrying a longed-for baby inside her, even though she had no idea what the future of being a single mother would hold? Should the baby not be her one and only priority? Again and again the guilt came, but each time she pushed it away. She was doing this for her baby, for their future, and to fulfil the dream of the father and mother she’d adored. Nothing would stop her. Nothing. And now, as she watched Danny and Jack come into the yard, she squared her shoulders and shook off the guilt and the misgivings that had plagued her. She couldn’t wait to tell them what lay ahead.

  Kerry had come downstairs to greet Danny and Jack in the kitchen where the housekeeper had prepared a breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs for them, before being told to take a couple of hours off.

  ‘Oh, good stuff, Kerry,’ Danny said as he saw the table. ‘I’m starving. I didn’t take time to eat, as you sounded desperate to talk.’ He turned to her. ‘Is there a problem? It was quiet in the city last night, thank Christ. So the Irish must have been out getting pished.’

  ‘No problem,’ Kerry assured, motioning to them to sit down. She looked from one to the other as they took their seats. ‘Not a problem. But a major opportunity has come our way. One that I think we have to grab with everything we’ve got.’

  Jack looked at Danny, then to Kerry as she poured coffee from a cafetière into mugs.

  ‘You look well buoyed up, Kerry. I hope this is good news for a change.’

  Kerry sat down and pulled her chair in.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll cut to the chase. Sharon called me last night. Wait till you hear this! Rodriguez is about to ship eight tonnes of pure, uncut coke to the UK.’ She paused and smiled as Jack spluttered his coffee. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s what I did too when I heard, Jack.’

  ‘Eight tonnes of uncut coke?’ Danny said. ‘Fuck me, Kerry! That’s about forty million fucking quid. Nobody does that.’

  Kerry raised a finger. ‘Forty-four, actually, according to recent markets. Forty-four million pounds, guys. Can you believe it? I know. Hard to take in. But it’s coming our way, and guess who’s in charge of the shipment, who’s going to be i
n charge of distributing it here to all of our enemies?’

  Jack looked at Danny and sat back and grinned.

  ‘Please tell me it’s that scheming prick Frankie.’

  ‘Got it in one.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Danny said. ‘Frankie? I mean he talks a good game, and he’s a right treacherous bastard when it comes down to it, but I know for a fact he’s never handled that amount of coke. Never. Even when he and your Mickey were running things here, they were never there for the big distribution. They bought from the big dealers, from the guys whose minions got their hands dirty. Sure, they might have run a few trucks of cannabis in back in the very old days. But cocaine? In eye-watering amounts like that? Christ! I don’t know anyone in the country who’d handle that amount.’

  ‘From what I gather from Sharon, Frankie will be drawing all the big shots from here to London and Dublin who will pay top dollar for a piece of this. The lure of making massive amounts of money from the uncut coke will be pulling them in.’

  ‘That’s for sure. Everyone will want that. And I mean everyone. Frankie will be shitting himself that he’s been given this to handle. He could get seriously ambushed by every fucking dealer he picks to buy the stuff.’ Danny rubbed his chin. ‘So this is coming from Sharon? What’s the story?’

  ‘Okay,’ Kerry said. ‘I’ll tell you. But here’s the best part.’ She waited two beats. ‘Sharon was with Vic yesterday. You know he’s on our side, and he’s dropping intel to her all the time – that’s what saved her life last week when Rodriguez sent the hit squad to wipe her and the rest of our boys out in that bar on the Costa.’

  They both nodded, as Kerry took a breath and a swig of her coffee. She was excited just talking about it.

  ‘Well, Vic told her that Rodriguez has asked him to ride shotgun in the truck that’s transporting the shipment. So for us, that’s as good as a tracker from the moment it leaves Spain until it docks in the UK at Portsmouth. Then it will be going to wherever Frankie has organised. So whatever his plan, we’ll have an inside track on what’s going on.’

  Danny shook his head and smiled at Jack.

  ‘Fuck me, man. That’s unbelievable! That’s like handing us this on a fucking plate!’

  Jack puffed and sat back with his hands clasped behind the back of his head.

  ‘Aye. But is it too good to be true? Once the word gets out that a shipment like this is on its way, all the fucking bandits from here to Bombay will be coming out of the woodwork.’

  ‘I know,’ Kerry said. ‘But Vic said that he expects Frankie won’t give his prospective buyers any details at all until a few hours before the meet.’ She spread her hands. ‘To be honest, we’re not even sure of the logistics, as they’ll probably be in Frankie’s head at the moment. But he’s got to part with some of the details to the guys who’re driving the stuff, and that includes Vic. So anything he gets, we’ll get pronto. It puts us right in the front line.’

  ‘I’ll say it does,’ Danny said. ‘And the firing line.’ He ripped off a piece of toast and stuffed it in his mouth, then washed it down with a gulp of coffee. ‘But if we can ambush this fucker, get there first and get our hands on this stuff, then we can make a fucking fortune.’

  Kerry nodded. ‘Exactly. Enough to help build our hotel, add to our properties, and turn us into a major player.’

  Danny shook his head wistfully and smiled.

  ‘You know your da always said he was an entrepreneur, Kerry. He always looked at the long game. Even when we were robbing and doing our stuff back in the days, your da used to make me chuckle when he’d say he was an entrepreneur. Christ! He’d love this.’

  Kerry smiled at the thought, but this wasn’t some small-time gig to pull in big money in one fell swoop, and escape unscathed and with all men left standing. This was as big as it got. This would take balls, and planning, and orchestrating with everything they had. Given the state the Caseys were in at the moment, with their enemies circling them and bodies piling up, this might be their last roll of the dice.

  ‘So,’ Kerry sat back and folded her arms. ‘Let’s do this.’

  *

  Frankie Martin was feeling frazzled. It was a long time since he’d had to wine and dine and press the flesh like this with cunts that he always had to watch his back with. When he and Mickey were running the show, they’d source their drugs from Knuckles Boyle and the Hills in London. But there were other dealers out there who were operating at that level, and most of the time they stayed out of each other’s way. As long as you didn’t stray onto someone else’s turf you were safe. But they all knew each other, they were all aware of each other’s capabilities and that there was never really any limit to what they would do to get what they wanted. But since Rodriguez dropped this job on him, Frankie had had to be up and down the country putting a deal together with the big shots who he knew would bite his hand off to get a piece of the action now. And some of them had a few Neanderthals in their outfit who would actually physically just bite your finger off anyway for the sheer hell of it or to make a point. So he had to have his wits about him twenty-four seven, as he swanned around in secret locations putting his cards on the table.

  There was a Turkish prick, called Mete, who ran a string of used-car dealerships in north London as a cover for the shedloads of heroin and cannabis he’d been importing for years. He looked like a sack of shit in a shiny worn-out suit and grubby shirt, but Mete was a multimillionaire with massive connections from the UK to Morocco to Spain. Frankie had only met him twice before, a couple of years ago along with Mickey, and Mete had then been floating the idea that maybe they should look to partnering up in the future. This was his big chance, Frankie had flannelled him, and by the time they’d finished lunch in some pretty decent Turkish restaurant in Watford, Mete told him he was good for five million quid’s worth of the uncut cocaine. Cash on delivery. No fucking funny business, he told Frankie. Aye fine, Frankie had agreed, promising it was a straight-up deal and to stand by for more information on where and when the deal would be done.

  There were another three dealers – one of them Tommy Fitz, from Liverpool, a thickset scally, who looked like he was the first in his family to walk upright, but actually had a brain as sharp as the flick knife he’d produced from his pocket at one point to roll expertly over each finger with the dexterity of a surgeon. Frankie had watched his brain tick over as he finally came up with the deal for six million for his cut of the coke. But as he rolled the flick knife over his fingers he told Frankie that if anything went wrong, such as the bizzies being on his tail after he picked up his cut, then it would be on Frankie’s head. Frankie didn’t protest, as they shook on the deal.

  The other hood was Billy Morton from Manchester, who’d been a sworn enemy of Knuckles Boyle and whom Frankie knew and didn’t like. But he had the money and he told Frankie the past didn’t matter a fuck if he could get his mitts on uncut coke.

  There were another couple of dealers across the country who were in for smaller amounts, so things were moving at a pace. Of course it was no surprise to him that all of them were more than happy to be invited to the party. Some of the thicker but deadly bastards were flattered that they were even being considered top dog enough for such a big deal. And all of them said they’d be happy to part with the millions that Frankie was asking for their cut of the shipment. Each of them knew that by the time it hit the streets, they’d get their money back tenfold and more. Even the dumb-looking bastards could count like traders on a city floor when it came to cutting and selling coke.

  But the biggest dealer of them all was Jumbo Keane, fresh out of Strangeways Prison last week after a ten-year stretch for his part in the brutal murder of a jockey who’d been discovered in the boot of a car on the M6. The jockey had made the fatal mistake of double-crossing Jumbo by throwing a race in favour of one of Jumbo’s biggest racehorse rivals and losing him a small fortune in the process. Jumbo didn’t forgive easily, as the protesting jockey had found out to his c
ost. But ten years was nothing to a man like him, whose criminal empire ran smoothly while he was inside thanks to his faithful crew, who’d also made sure that his years in jail were comfortable, having greased a few palms of the prison staff. He was out now, and Frankie knew that the prospect of getting his hands on a haul of uncut coke would stick him top of the heap all over the Midlands.

  Frankie had found him a silent and distant customer, a man of few words who didn’t brag or tell stories, but also with a menace in his dead grey eyes that gave him the creeps. Jumbo wasn’t a man to throw his arms around you and be glad for the opportunity. Frankie had taken him to dinner in a restaurant of Jumbo’s choice where he noticed that every flunkey fawned over him, then at Jumbo’s suggestion, to a club where the women were gorgeous and pricey, and it was there they’d parted company. Jumbo had told him in the dark corner where they’d sat that he hoped they could do business together in the future. Frankie kept things close to his chest, telling him that he’d be given details of the meet only a few hours before it was due, and that he’d be expected to part with a lot of money. Jumbo was stony-faced and agreed, told him he was in for twenty million. Frankie had to keep his face straight at the eye-watering amount, but they shook on it. Jumbo didn’t ask any more questions, and that was niggling Frankie even now, as every other dealer he’d spoken to had wanted to know a bit more about when it was arriving. But Frankie was wise to them, and there was no way he was going to be parting with anything that would let these fuckers ambush him. Big Jumbo, even though he was a bit creepy, knew how to do business. He had the money and he told Frankie he’d be ready and waiting for his call. Then Frankie had watched him disappear with a Russian girl half his age through a tacky velvet curtain and into the darkness of a back room, no doubt to make up for lost time he’d spent at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Sharon punched in Jan’s phone number on her mobile. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d been talking to the big Dutch truck driver who had regularly transported drugs for Knuckles Boyle from Amsterdam to Manchester. They’d got to know each other over the years as Sharon had opened the warehouse in Amsterdam for Knuckles where his shipments would be stored while in transit. It had been such a smooth operation, and Jan had asked no questions, only followed instructions, and picked up his money from his bank account once he delivered. On the few occasions that they’d spent some time having a drink or a bite to eat in Amsterdam if she was over inspecting the warehouse, he’d told her that one day he’d give all this up, move to the Caribbean or somewhere and open a beach bar, then live out the rest of his life in the sun. Given that he was driving drugs for criminals, he was lucky to have survived this far. Now Sharon was about to make him the offer of a lifetime.